Answer: find some co-operative Muslims who will agree with you, and promote their views as representative of the community. That way you neatly deflect accusations of racism. So we have the Express asserting that “both Muslims and non-Muslims” advocate a ban, while the Daily Mail wheels out Saira Khan, who writes in terms that could just as easily be found on some far-right website:

“In hardline Muslim communities right across Britain, the burkha and hijab – the Muslim headscarf – are becoming the norm…. Thanks to fundamentalist Muslims and ‘hate’ preachers working in Britain, the veiling of women is suddenly all-pervasive and promoted as a basic religious right. We are led to believe that we must live with this in the name of ‘tolerance’.

“… the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous. The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.

“So what should we do in Britain? For decades, Muslim fundamentalists, using the human rights laws, have been allowed to get their own way…. For the sake of women and children, the Government must ban the wearing of the hijab in school and the burkha in public places….

“My message to those Muslims who want to live in a Talibanised society, and turn their face against Britain, is this: ‘If you don’t like living here and don’t want to integrate, then what the hell are you doing here? Why don’t you just go and live in an Islamic country?'”